I love writing stories. It has saved me from a lonely man’s sorrow by restoring joy to my life. I revisit old memories that I shared with my loved one, and redo what we did together. Only, this time, with another close person or persons. The sharing and putting into solid form (writing) relights another dark light on my string. Amazingly, the process keeps growing. My life now (and I am retired with a pension) makes no real demands on my time. I can mostly use it to do whatever I choose. Others may have to portion out their efforts in a different manner. But it can still be done by anyone.
I choose to not only relive and write, but to share as well. Share the joy that I feel with a close person or persons who pick up my joyful vibes. We share the light of a restored joy.
You want to know who else is involved in this relighting?
God.
I am constantly begging him to help me find memories and topics and words, and all the rest to relight my life, and of whoever helps me. He does. And, when do you think he comes to help?
Very, very early in the morning. At a time when I am snug and cozy in my warm comforter clad bed. It is usually when I wake up for my early morning water release. As I slide back into my warm bed, he starts bombarding me with amazing answers to my requests. So clear and simple that if I don’t immediately write them down, they will get lost in all the noise turmoil that will greet me when I engage myself with all the media devices we have in today`s world.
So, out of bed I get. Grab my scratchpad and note all the information that is humming in my brain. Note it before it gets swallowed up and dissolved in the daily noise.
I have come to understand that the notes themselves hardly ever get translated into my writings, but that the thoughts they describe somehow get into my brain in a way that I can develop and involve them clearly into those same writings.
God is an unceasing fountain of ideas. If I don`t take the time to notate them they get swallowed in the next batch of information that comes at me. And those I don`t need, and can do very little about. You know like the stuff you hear on the news or see in the morning paper. I have lived long enough to know that I have very little influence in changing whatever comes at me from those sources.
What things I can influence are found in those ideas that come to me in those early morning thoughts. They give me powerful insight into what is really important. What makes life good. How I can help bring about good for myself and for my supporters. One of those ideas was this website, and most of the rest, all the stories I have placed in it.
This morning God put on his noodge* hat. I had gotten in and out of my warm bed two or three times already to make notes on the thoughts he was streaming through my brain, and was ready to curl up for a nice little pre-getting up snuggle. He wouldn`t let me go do it as he hit me again with another way to describe the purpose of this website. I actually wrote it up as a story entitled “The Lamplighter” and am using it on my give away bookmark to explain what “Relighting Us” is all about.
I really wanted to get on with my last minute cozy rest, but he hit me with that idea and I had to get back out into the cold and write down notes. As I did this, I kind of chuckled to myself, and doggone it if I didn’t really sense that He was chuckling, too. I really did, and you can’t convince me that He wasn’t. I made God laugh. We both enjoyed it. Talk about sharing…
*Yiddish (verb) To nag or annoy someone, especially in order to motivate them to do something. (noun) Someone who does this.